


Conversations With The Devil

by Infinite_Monkeys



Series: Family Ties [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Conversations, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Loki (Marvel) Needs a Hug, POV Loki (Marvel), She Also Needs To Stop With The Stabbing, So Does Hela Probably
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-07-03 19:23:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15825354
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Infinite_Monkeys/pseuds/Infinite_Monkeys
Summary: Loki Laufeyson, brother of Odin, is banished with his daughter Hela to the wastes of Niflheim. He is dangerous, manipulative, and most certainly not allowed visitors.Loki Odinson isn't sure why he keeps coming back.





	Conversations With The Devil

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own Marvel or the Norse Pantheon, and honestly, that's probably for the best.
> 
> This is very much a part of a series, and copious references are made to events in _Impostor Syndrome_ and _Blood and Conviction_. If you haven't read those, this will probably make like... 17% sense? If that's enough sense for you, then by all means, proceed.

The first time Loki visited his uncle was not long after they first came to Earth.    
  
He sat in a chair in the furnished but otherwise rather plain room Thor's friend had provided for him and closed his eyes, not admitting to himself what he planned to do until the spell was already half-woven.    
  
When he concentrated the room around him faded, and instead of the blank wall he was looking at a grey landscape, gloomy and frozen, with mist curling around the bases of gnarled trees.    
  
Something moved, and he watched with a sort of detachment as two figures emerged from the fog. Hela, with her dark cloak and pale skin, looked as though she belonged here in this place of shadow and mist. He wondered if her time here had changed her, or her presence changed the land, or if it were a trick of fate that left them so perfectly suited to one another.    
  
She took one look at his face, snarled, and pulled a knife out of her boot to run him through.    
  
His uncle snorted, Jotunn-red eyes narrowing with scorn. The knife sailed through his abdomen as though cutting through the mist and her arm followed, emerging clean on the other side.    
  
"Really, daughter," he said to Hela, "if you're going to fall for an illusion that easily perhaps they should start calling you Odinsdottir again."   
  
He turned back to Loki, giving his illusion an appraising look. As he paced he shifted his form fluidly from Jotunn to Asgardian, taking on the same face he'd worn back when Loki had first met him. His uncle was larger than him but still smaller than Thor, with pale Aesir skin and red-gold hair and beard, both trimmed short in defiance of Asgardian fashion. Now that he was looking closely their features did share a certain similarity, sharp and thin and with the same grass-green eyes.    
  
"Junior here isn't actually here," he continued, "probably not even on this realm. A projection, am I correct?" He poked Loki's insubstantial forehead, raising his eyebrows as his finger sank through. Hela pulled her knife back and huffed, fixing the both of them with a glare before stalking back off into the mist. Apparently, if she couldn't kill him, she wanted nothing further to do with him.    
  
His uncle, though, stayed, looking him over with something akin to amusement.   
  
"So you survived," he said. "How disappointing. Come to let me out again?"   
  
Loki scoffed. "That's not happening."    
  
"Oh," he huffed a laugh, his breath solid white in the cold, "I think you will. Not today, maybe, or the next time, but you'll free me eventually."   
  
"I don't know why you'd think that, given how well that went for me last time." He didn't shudder, mostly because he'd been so careful to repress those reactions around Thor it'd become almost second nature to him.    
  
"I know because you're here." He picked up a chunk of slate grey rock from the ground, brittle with cold, and started breaking off bits to toss through Loki's projection. "Does Daddy know you've run off to talk to his evil, murderous outcast of a brother?" His smile turned predatory when Loki didn't answer. "Ooh, a rebellious streak. He named you well, didn't he?"    
  
"I'm here out of curiosity," Loki said calmly. "Nothing more."   
  
"You want know how much you take after your old namesake?" Another piece splintered off the rock with an echoing crack, then clattered across the ground after sailing through his shoulder. "You're basically me. Younger, maybe, stupider, certainly, but we're the same. You love knowledge, and you love power. I have an abundance of both. Someday," he said, voice suffused with absolute certainty, "you're going to need something that I know, or something that I can do, and I'll be the lesser of two evils. You're a rational creature. You'll let me out." He crushed the remains of the rock and brushed the dust off his fingers.    
  
"I think not," he said, and vanished.   
  


* * *

  
  
The next time Hela threw the knife, carved from the same grey stone as the jagged rocks that surrounded them, and his uncle rolled his eyes.    
  
"I knew it was an illusion," she said. "I just wanted my dear cousin to know exactly how I feel about him."   
  
"Use your words, darling," he said, and Hela shot him a dirty glare. "Violence is a powerful but unsophisticated method of communication. You're better than that."    
  
When she retreated, looking astonishingly sullen for someone so intimidating, he turned back to Loki. "Back again. Come to check out the accommodations?"   
  
"Why would I?"    
  
He shrugged. "I thought you'd noticed the pattern. All of Odin's adopted disappointments end up here sooner or later."    
  
Loki raised an eyebrow. "I thought I was going to let you out?"    
  
He tilted his head. "Whichever comes first. It's inevitable, though. Did you know that at the trial for your crimes against Midgard, back when everyone thought I was you, he told me he wished he'd left you to die when you were a baby? He seemed to think his life would be better if you had frozen to death on that rock where your real parents left you."   
  
"You're a liar," Loki said, and he managed to keep his voice steady.    
  
"Ask him if you don't believe me. I think you do, though. You know what he thinks of you, even if you refuse to admit it to yourself."   
  
"I'm done," he said, and his uncle gave a small wave of acknowledgement.    
  
"Until next time," he said as Loki faded out.    
  


* * *

  
  
The third time was after he had finished retelling the glorious story of how Thor had hit his own hand with Mjolnir to the assembled Avengers.    
  
They had enjoyed the tale, they had laughed together, but Loki hadn't missed the suspicion in their eyes when they responded to Thor's pained bellow, or the way all the weapons had been trained on him when they burst into the room.    
  
Hela noticed him first, and she stomped over to where he was standing. "You are a weak, pathetic, spineless little nithing," she hissed before deliberately stalking through him and away.    
  
His uncle chuckled. "Well, at least she's communicating verbally now. You must admit that is an improvement."   
  
When he looked up, something flickered in his eyes, and his attention sharpened.    
  
"The scar's new," he said, and Loki curled his fist instinctively around his palm. The cut there had healed almost completely, nothing left but a thick pinkish line still fading to white. "Aw, Now we're shy? Looks like somebody has a blood-brother. So you and Odin's little brat? How sickeningly adorable."    
  
Loki tilted his head. "I've been called worse."   
  
"I'm sure. That looks pretty new," he said, indicating his curled palm. "Though in your case isn't it a bit redundant? Odin did adopt you, or so I've heard."    
  
"I told him that," he said. "He still wanted to do it. I humored him."   
  
"So it wasn't even your idea. Still trailing along in big brother's shadow, are we? Chasing after him, doing whatever he wants so he doesn't leave us behind. How pathetic."   
  
"Stop."   
  
"It won't work. Someday you'll go too far, and he'll discard you without a second thought. See what your so-called brotherhood means to him then."   
  
"No," he said. "Thor isn't Odin. And I'm not you."   
  
"Really." He leaned back against one of the misshapen trees and crossed his arms. "You forget I spent some time in that skin of yours. He came to visit me, this brother of yours, when I was in the dungeons which, side note, he never objected to Odin tossing you into. Which do you want to hear about first? How he told me I wasn't his brother? How there was nothing left worth trying to save inside me? Believe me, he'll turn on you the first time you cross the wrong line."   
  
"Then I won't," he said simply.    
  
The older Loki laughed. "You will. It's in your nature. You like to push, and prod, and see where people's limits are. You do it with your brother, Hel, I'm guessing you do it with everyone you care about, even yourself. It's why you're here now, with me."   
  
Loki frowned. "In what way am I testing you?"   
  
"Not me," he said smugly. "You're testing yourself. Coming here, talking to me. Listening while I throw your worst fears back in your face. It's like you're looking for a reason to fall to pieces. You act like you can keep from hurting your brother when you can't even stop hurting yourself. Why else would you keep coming here, of all places?"   
  
"I think I should leave," Loki said. He stayed where he was.   
  
"A bit of advice, before you go." His uncle pushed off the tree, standing up straight. "If I were you, I'd find a way to make myself worthwhile. Win their affection. Stay out of trouble. Find something you alone can do that is of value to those around you. Hold on to this," he gestured to his own scar, a thin white line across the palm, "as long as you can. I promise you it won't last."   
  
He pointedly walked right through Loki's illusion as he left. The mists swirled in his wake then closed, and soon there was no sign of life anywhere except the thin, misshapen trees.    
  
Loki closed his eyes and opened them again to the Midgardian sunlight, too bright after the land of darkness.    
  
He shook his head as though clearing away the last bit of Niflheim's gloom and fog from the folds of his brain. He reminded himself his uncle was a liar; he was. He reminded himself that his family loved him, that Thor trusted him, that he didn't need to work or manipulate to stay in their good graces or earn their affection.   
  
He didn't, he repeated to himself until it was nearly a mantra.    
  
He didn't.   
  


**Author's Note:**

> Haha, Y'all thought I forgot about these guys, didn't you? Well here they are, unforgotten.


End file.
